


Curiosity Killed the Cat

by ConvivialCamera



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Book 6: A Breath of Snow and Ashes, Book 7: An Echo in the Bone, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-15 04:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21247619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConvivialCamera/pseuds/ConvivialCamera
Summary: “I know Brianna told you what—what we are. Do you believe it?”“No,” he said, “but I give you my word that I will of course behave in all respects as if I did.”—Written in My Own Heart’s BloodLord John Grey wants to know the truth, but Brianna has a fantastical tale to tell him.





	Curiosity Killed the Cat

_Wilmington, Colony of North Carolina, 1776_

“What did Da tell you about Mama? Before she came back?” Brianna asked her guest, Lord John Grey, who had come by her family’s rooms at the tavern, apparently with the intent of satisfying his curiosity.

“He said that she was _gone_,” Lord John replied, “and I assumed she was dead. But later, he confessed it was only likely that she had died and that he had escaped Ardsmuir on a chance to find her.”

Briana’s eyebrows raised in alarm as she passed him a whisky. “Da escaped prison?”

“He did return,” Lord John said, affronted.

“You didn’t tell me _that_ when you told me about Ardsmuir before.”

“I have been more forthcoming with you than is proper already, my dear.”

But Briana waved it away, clearly getting back to the thrust of the conversation. “And when she returned?”

“He and your mother put about a rather thin story about her escaping the battle at Culloden by sailing to France. I was at Culloden, and know this to be nearly impossible, but I — prudently, I believe — did not pursue the matter.”

Briana snorted. “And, obviously, I was not raised in France.”

Lord John gave her a look of pathetic agreement, but took a sip of his drink.

“Yes, you said you and your mother lived in Boston, which as I said, explains your political attitudes but —”

“It doesn’t quite fit, does it?” Her blue, slanted eyes shined with a mischief that Lord John fancied had shone in James Frasers eyes more than once as a child. Lord John was becoming more perplexed, even as he knew that a simple childhood in the colony of Massachusetts was not enough to explain the many mysteries of Brianna Fraser MacKenzie and her mother.

“My dear, I am in suspense.”

“We’re time travellers,” Briana revealed, with the air of a conjurer revealing his trick. “Da didn’t send Mama to France, he sent her, well, back to the future — to when she came from.”

Lord John was both startled and even more puzzled than before. “And where, excuse me, _when_ did your mother come from?”

“Nineteen forty-six.”

“I’m sorry, she’s from the year of our Lord nineteen-hundred and forty-six?” He quickly made the calculations and his jaw dropped. “That’s 170 years from now!”

“Is that so unbelievable?” Brianna asked, looking rather amused.

Lord John did not deign to answer directly. “And you? If you were living,” he cleared his throat meaningfully, “in the future, how did you come to be here?”

“Well, Mama and Roger and I went looking for Da, after Roger figured out he didn’t die at Culloden.”

“You thought he died at Culloden?”

“Well, he meant to, and he sent Mama away before he did it, so how were we to know?” She shrugged, but then brightened. “He’s going to be a legend in the Highlands you know, the laird who hid from the English in a cave and saved his estate by arranging for his capture, and all that. They’ll call him The Dunbonnet.”

“Of course they will,” said Lord John, seemingly overcome.

“We found the records of his stay in prison, and then he was paroled in England — how much did you have to do with that?”

“Just about everything.”

“And then he went back to Edinburgh….” Brianna stopped suddenly. “Wait. England. Oh, of course. William.”

“Yes, William,” Lord John confirmed. He watched as the realization turned into resolve on her face.

“Well, to make a long story short,” Brianna continued, “we found Da’s printshop and Mama went back to him, and then I found a notice in a newspaper that said they died and realized I could, maybe, warn them, after I finished college I went through the stones to find them, and Roger followed me, and well, you know the rest of that.”

“I do.” Lord John pondered her last statement. “What do you mean by ‘went through the stones’?”

“Have you ever seen a circle of standing stones? Like, Stonehenge?”

“Yes, but —”

“Some of them, or maybe most of them, or only a few, are portals through time, for some.”

“Portals through time?”

“Yes,” Brianna said. “Although not everyone can do it — Da can’t — and it only works at certain times of the year, and you probably need gemstones to protect you, even though Mama didn’t have any when she went through the first time on accident, and —” Lord John was looking pale, and clutched the glass of whisky tightly in his hand. “This is too much, isn’t it?”

“It is quite the tale,” Lord John said, remembering his drink and taking a gulp. Composing himself with effort, he continued: “You said you found your parent’s obituary? When will they die?” He looked distressed at the thought.

“The Big House was supposed to burn down in January, but it didn’t. _Praemonitus praemunitus_, after all.”

“Forewarned is forearmed, indeed,” Lord John said. “And what college, pray tell, would admit a woman to read, even one of your intellect?”

“Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which won’t be founded for another ninety or so years. I’m a licensed engineer, you know.” She smiled at Lord John’s astounded face — he clearly had never heard of such a thing. “It’s how I made the matches. And Mama’s got a medical degree from Harvard.”

“That is one of the least outlandish things you have told me tonight.”

“Of that, Lord John, I have no doubt.” But she sighed, and earnestly went on, “Do you believe any of it?”

The shock of her pronouncements was wearing off, and Lord John was feeling more himself. “I must admit, I can provide little assurance of my own apprehension of such a thing,” he said.

“I didn’t really expect you to, honestly. I didn’t believe Mama, when she first told me about it. I even threw a fire poker through a window.” She smiled in remembrance. “Although that was more about Da, and less about the time travel.”

“I have yet to have the pleasure to see you in a true temper, my dear, and it is a pleasure I hope to long forego.” He stood to leave, and Brianna rose from her own chair.

“It’s where we’re going. Or when, I should say — not just away from here, or to France. We’re going back to when we came from.” Despite his total disbelief in her story, her distress was entirely real. “It’s why I’m so sure this will be the last time we’ll see one another.”

“You know I shall miss you particularly, my dear.”

“Me too.”

As he walked back to his own lodgings through the streets of Wilmington, Lord John reflected on the many ridiculous and totally fantastic things Brianna had told him about herself and her mother and thought that curiosity did indeed kill the cat.

**Author's Note:**

> I am indebted to [futurelounging](https://archiveofourown.org/users/futurelounging/pseuds/futurelounging), who gifted me a line of Lord John's dialogue and also the best articulation of his manner and mode of expression that I’ve seen yet.


End file.
